On Aug. 1, 1966, I was working a summer job between my sophomore and junior year in college. I worked late-night shift as a janitor in an office building in downtown Tulsa. That night the rest of crew, all working class folk, turned to me, the college boy, to explain what the hell happened in Texas that day.

Charles Whitman, an ex-Marine and student at the University of Texas at Austin stabbed him wife and mother to death in their respective beds, then later that morning he sneaked an arsenal to the top of the iconic UT clock tower. And at about noon, he began firing with a high-powered rifle from the observation deck 307 feet above ground, picking off human targets with stunning accuracy. Ninety minutes later, his murderous spree ended as two Austin police officers and a civilian kicked through a barricaded door and killed him. Whitman had killed 14 dead and 32 wounded.

Whitman ‘s rampage sent shockwaves across the nation. We were not used to mass murders then, certainly not on a university campus. As we gathered in the lunchroom, my janitor colleagues asked me with worry in their eyes why? Why would a young man kill his wife and mother and then casually pick off strangers from a sniper’s roost?

I had no answers. It was alien territory for me. The university life I knew involved studies, drinking beer and thinking about women. No one I knew wanted to murder anyone.

Twenty years later, as a reporter for the Dallas Morning News, I had the opportunity to revisit Charles Whitman’s day of terror in Austin. I read the police investigation report and Whitman’s journal as he recorded his decline into madness.I read the university psychologist’s report on Whitman and read his autopsy. I visited with victim’s families, with survivors, with school officials, with those who had been on campus, with law enforcement officers, and with the police officer who killed Whitman. None of them ever fully recovered from their encounter with Whitman. As they walked across campus, they still looked up at the tower, looking for shadows along the observation deck. I learned many things. But I never figured out why.

Now it is the 50th anniversary of that terrible day. We’ve seen many, many more incidents of mass killings across this country, far too many of them on school campuses. There will be many 50th anniversary commentaries. I have nothing new to add. But I am including my two reports from 1986. I hope it adds something to the conversation.

SNIPER’S 20-YEAR-OLD LEGACY HAUNTS AUSTIN (PART I)

David McLemore

AUSTIN — The shooting was an inexplicable burst of violence 20 years

ago. But it introduced to Austin a new and terrible age.

After Charles Joseph Whitman unleashed his demons Aug. 1, 1966,

life was never so simple, people never so trusting. After Whitman, all

that could be expected was the unexpected.

Shortly before noon on Aug. 1, 1966, Whitman, a 25-year-old

University of Texas student, stood with a hunting rifle in the clock

tower 335 feet above the campus. He began firing with uncanny accuracy

at the people below.

In 99 minutes, before police gunned him down, Whitman killed 14

people and wounded 31 others. Twelve hours before his shooting spree

began, he had fatally shot and stabbed his mother and savagely stabbed

his wife to death.

That day, people in Austin began living with the edgy awareness

that the blond former Eagle Scout, the dutiful son, the all-American

boy who smiled politely and worked hard, could, in an instant on a

summer day, turn killer.

Twenty years later, when a car backfires on Guadalupe Street, eyes

look up to the Tower.

Morris Hohmann, 50, sits in his office at Hyltin-Manor Mortuary. Now

he owns it. Twenty years ago, as an ambulance driver, he answered a

police call for a shooting at the UT campus.

“From that day, I better realized there is such a thing as

mortality,’ Hohmann said. “Since then, I’ve given thanks every day for

another day.’

His first run to UT was uneventful. “All I knew was someone had

been shot. When I got the body back to the hospital, I suddenly

realized the magnitude of the situation.’

A second call sent Hohmann to Sheftall Jewelers, then at 23rd and

Guadalupe streets. “Sheftall’s front door was shattered by gunfire and

people were bleeding inside,’ Hohmann said. “We were directed around to

the rear. I stayed outside the truck and guided it around the corner; I

lost my cover. That’s when I got it.’

Hohmann said two shots were fired at him. One shattered a car’s

windshield. While he was running, the other shot struck him above the

right knee. Hohmann rolled under the car with the shattered windshield,

where he lay bleeding for an hour.

“I wasn’t really afraid of dying right then,’ he said. “My biggest

concern was loss of blood. I remember laying in the heat, listening to

gunfire and two workers 30 feet away arguing which one would try to

rescue me. Finally, they both did.’

Hohmann was taken to Brackenridge Hospital in his own ambulance.

Doctors told him a 6mm hollow-point bullet had exploded on impact,

shredding a vein up into his thigh. There was no permanent damage. “It

I may have mentioned Ginny and I were having our knees replaced. Wrote about it repeatedly, to the point of boring everyone sockless. Now I can tell y0u, it’s all done. Since January, I’ve had two knees replaced and Ginny has had one. What no one told us was that the hard part had just begun.

The specialists call it ‘physical therapy.’ The surgeries were a walk in the park, relatively speaking. The pump you up with tons of painkillers, you don’t really notice that someone has sliced open your knees and put titanium-and-plastic replicas in place. Until about day two, when the painkillers wear off and you’re getting ready to go home.

That’s where physical therapy comes in. Mostly, it consists of exercises that stretch and strengthen the muscles, keep the new joint fluid and smooth, and build up your endurance to walk around the block, go shopping for dog food or simply get around the house. It’s not that difficult. Except for the blue foam box they gave you at the hospital.

It’s a simple device, about 12″X12″ with a rectangular space about 3″ deep cut into the top. You lay on the bed, extend your leg with the new knee and prop it on the space and let gravity take over. The weight of your leg pulls the knee down, pulling on the tendons, helping straighten the leg in something like a normal position. You do this three times a day for 20 minutes. That’s it. Except that after a few minutes, your suddenly freakishly heavy leg pulls down on the newly abused tendons and muscles with great pain. And it grows worse. Time stops. And you begin hating Einstein for his stupid theory of relativity and you still have 15 minutes to go.

The physical therapist calls the box an extender and laughs a little when you tell him you hate the damn thing. “Oh, everyone hates the box,” he says. Gin & I call it Satan’s Blue Box and want to smack him when he says we must do it. Every day.

There are coping mechanisms to get through the box. We first tried screaming in rage and pain. But it really makes the dogs upset. Now, we sing along with a video of Lady Gaga. ‘Born This Way’ works well. As do ‘Uptown Funk’ with Bruno Mars, and ‘I Love Rock & Roll’ with Joan Jett, and the entire oeuvre of Queen. We sing with full vigor and it seems to work. For the record, the dogs like ‘Uptown Funk’ the best.

In truth, none of the stretching, bending, stepping, movements we have to make are pleasant. But they’re necessary. And to anyone who will one day have a knee replaced — and trust me, there’s a lot of you out there — do the PT. Get the box and use it religiously. And stock up on Lady Gaga.

That’s right. I’m headed back to the hospital, this time to have the left knee replaced. Who said retirement can’t be fun. I did the other knee seven weeks ago and it’s kind of boring the second time around, I won’t bore you with the details. Read the first story.

This also means that I will spend Super Tuesday watching election returns in a pain-killer haze. Go Hillary! Ginny & I have already voted. You all should too.